The May 17 bike drive led by the ARAS Foundation collected and prepared 925 bikes for shipment to Ghana, organizer Mary Trask said. The week before, several Bellingham residents collected and prepared 620 bikes as an offshoot of the Sammamish drive.

“…It was an extremely hot day … yet we had volunteers and donations streaming in all day long to make this our most successful drive yet,” Trask said. “It certainly couldn’t have happened without many volunteers.”

Cindy and Steve VanWambeck, James Santerelli, Loraine Martinez, Dr. Kais Faddah, Bruce Sieger, Randy Dawson and Sheri Newton volunteered use of their pick-up trucks, and drove throughout Seattle and as far north as Everett to collect bikes. Doug and Heidi Hodges donated the use of their backyard for pre-collected donated bikes, and the Trasks had more than 100 bikes in their backyard as well. The Redmond company 2 Men and a Truck offered their services to transport the more than 400 bikes to Sammamish City Hall where they could be loaded into the shipping container for transport to Africa, Trask said.

This year’s event tripled the number of bikes collected last year, she said.

“Just like getting your first car, everyone remembers their first bike,” Trask said. “All of those memories and blessings are going with the bikes as they make their journey to new owners in Ghana.”